A goodbye letter

Dear you:

I’d be lying if I said this isn’t one of the most important letters I have ever written. Because there are very few people on this earth who have yet to shape my life as much as you did.

I’d be lying if I said I never cared about you. It wasn’t completely blind and immature, I really did have your best interests in mind. You really are a good person. There really will be a girl someday who will love you with her whole heart.

But that girl won’t be me.

I’d be lying if I said I was never angry with you. Bitterness took root and grew without my realizing it, putting distance between you and me, so many miles that by the end I hardly even recognized your face.

I was furious because I was so hurt, and all that pain felt like more than I could take. I wanted to lash out, to shove you out of my life, to never have to look at you again. I understand now that you were just trying to do the right thing, and I’m sorry I didn’t see that.

However, I do want you to know this:

I don’t regret a single word I said to you in that last conversation.

You were angry, so angry. I know it hurt, because it hurt me too. I don’t need to prove to you that it hurt, but I do want you to believe me. Everything I said was spoken with dignity and love, even if you didn’t like what I had to say. I’m glad I loved you when I did, and I’m glad I walked away when I did. I think I’m better for it.

I think I’m a better version of me because I loved you.

I’m stronger, wiser, braver, more confident, more sure. I learned a lot of valuable lessons, made a lot of big mistakes, and listened to God in a way I never have before. I took a lot of big risks because of you, bigger than any I’ve ever taken before. I became more independent, shedding the opinions I clung to so desperately and standing up for my right to be heard.

Thank you for letting me go when it was time for me to walk away.

I’m happier now than I’ve been in a long time, but I still think about you sometimes. I wonder if you’re okay, if you’ve given up on unconditional love or stopped being transparent with people. I hope you didn’t. I hope you have somebody you can open up to. You certainly deserve that much.

My hope and prayer is that you’ve been able to come to this place too, this place where blame and criticism is thrown to the wind and we’re able to forgive and be thankful for the chapter in our lives that has open and shut. I’m thankful for it. I hope you are too.

I forgive you for the mistakes you made, and I don’t hold them against you. I know we are more than the sum of our bad choices, and I hope you’re able to say the same of me.

This is goodbye, for real this time. The last strand of this chapter is finally being cut loose, a part of my life I’m not ever going to hide again. It happened. It’s real. It’s part of my life, my story, embedded in my heart like a shard of glass.